Let me tell the list the way I am using the audio therapy series and the experience I've had. 

I think this is especially important for people who don't have the series and ask whether the series works.  (This question seems to come up about once in each list.)

My personal situation is this:  my husband and I work different hours and we have an elderly relative living with us who cannot be left alone.  Consequently the only time I have to myself is in the car driving to and from work.  Fortunately the ride is a little over a half-hour. 

I listen to one half of the tape going to work and the other half coming home. When I start a new tape, I repeat phrases as they come from the tape.  By the end of the week, I know the tape almost by heart and talk over the tape as it is playing.

Last week I was working on tape 7.  Toward the end of the week , I started
having these dreams of rooms and rooms of people having conversations.  I
didn't know any of the people and I didn't join in any of the conversations,
but I walked through the rooms leisurely and without any anxious desire to
escape, just casually noting all the people and feeling really peaceful.

At first I didn't understand the dream at all.  My dreams are usually filled
with people frantically chasing each other.  They I realized that the dream
was like a postcard from my subconscious telling me that it got the message.

That wasn't the only thing that happened. 

My daughter has a job providing information over the phone.  She had been offered a choice of this job or a customer service job and chose "personal shopper" because she didn't want to deal with angry people.  Last week she was given the special assignment of talking to people with questions about some company promotions.   These promotions are valuable - a $50 gift certificate and and $500-$1000 coupons - so the criteria for receiving them are quite strict.  It turned out that the people who were calling about the promotions were trying to get around the restrictions and were being quite obnoxious. 

My daughter was upset about it - and anxious.

And out of my mouth I heard:  "It's no big deal.  It has nothing to do with you.  These people are trying to 'con' the company.  And since they don't even have a basis for complaint, you could even have fun with it.  Take on a schoolmarm voice and say:  'You know you aren't entitled to a (certificate/coupon).'"

My daughter started giggling and what I said apparently dispelled her upset and anxiety completely because she hasn't mentioned it again (and, believe me, if it was bothering her she would mention it - again and again and again).

So to the people who wonder, the tapes do work but with repetition. It is the repetition that does it. 

I started reading J. Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" this week and would like to offer this quotation from chapter 1:

The human baby, the human being, is a mosaic of animal and angel. For
example, the reflex that makes the baby kick is already there in the womb; every mother knows that; and it is there in all vertebrates. The reflex is self-sufficient, but it sets the stage for more elaborate movements, which have to be practised before they become automatic.  Here by eleven months it urges the baby to crawl. That brings in new movements, and they then lay down and consolidate the pathways in the brain (specifically the cerebellum, where muscular action and balance are integrated) that will form a whole repertoire of subtle, complex movements and make them second nature to him. Now the cerebellum is in control. All that the conscious mind has to do is to issue a command. And by fourteen months the command is "Stand !" The child has entered the human commitment to walk upright.

Experiences Home Page

The therapy: Overcoming Social Anxiety: Step by Step